Outlet of revolutionary words hoping to sprout.
AFRICA the vein of the world; Babylon the cutter

Monday, November 10, 2008

Bless thy soul Miriam Makeba

This day the Queen of African music passed away in the early morning in Castel Volturno, Italy, of a heartattack some time after partaking in a concert to support Robert Saviano who's against the Camorra which is a mafia-like organisation.

Miriam Zenzi Makeba was born in Johannesburg on 4 March, 1932, to a Swazi mother and a Xhosa father, who died when she was only 6. She had a talent for singing even as a child when she sang at the Kilmerton Training Institute which she attended for 8 years.The rest is history one can say. Miriam Makeba began singing, naturally, starting in an amateur group but quicly became a professional when she formed her own group, The Skylarks. She was a speaker against apartheid, and she married the well known African Trinidadian civil rights activist and Black Panther Stokely Carmichael. A woman with a cause.Her swinging rhythm is characterized by a blend of jazz and South African melodies, and she is one of the best known African artist worldwide.

I remember hearing her music as a little girl from my parents. One song she sang with her group The Skylarks was Inkomo Zodwa; I will never shake that song off my mind. Incredible is a too small word for such a great woman. Bless her soul.

The quote of the month

"Knowing the benefits that have resulted to this country from the Slave Trade, I think it would have been advisable to institute rather than abolish such a Trade; for I know that if it had not been for that Trade, this country would never have been in its present independent situation."